LXXXVII
And now, in act to go, that company
Behind them hear the stony road resound
With a long trample, when those warlike three
Look down the vale and roll their eyes around;
And they from thence, a stone's-throw distant, see
A troop, which through a narrow pathway wound:
A score they are perhaps in number, who
On horseback, or on foot, their way pursue.
LXXXVIII
They with them on a horse a woman haul,
(Whom stricken sore in years her visage shows,)
In guise wherein some doleful criminal
Condemned to gallows, fire, or prison goes;
Who, notwithstanding that wide interval,
Is by her features known, as well as clothes:
They of the village, mid the cavalcade,
Know her for fair Drusilla's chamber maid.
LXXXIX
The chamber wench, made prisoner with his prize,
By the rapacious stripling, as I shewed,
Who being trusted with that ill emprize,
The poisoned draught of foul effect had brewed.
From the others she and those solemnites
Had kept away, suspecting what ensued:
Yea, this while, from that lordship had she fled,
Where she in safety hoped to hide her head.
XC
News being after to her foeman brought,
That she retired in Ostericche lay,
He, with intent to burn the woman, sought
To have her in his power by every way;
And finally unhappy Avarice, bought
By costly presents, and by proffered pay,
Wrought on a lord, assured upon whose lands
The beldam lived, to put her in his hands.
XCI
He on a sumpter horse the prisoner sent
To Constance-town, like merchandise addrest;
Fastened and bound in manner to prevent
The use of speech, and prisoned in a chest.
From whence that rabble, his ill instrument,
Who has all pity banished from his breast,
Had hither brought her, that his impious rage
That cruel man might on the hag assuage.
XCII
As the flood, swoln with Vesulo's thick snows,
The farther that it foams upon its way,
And, with Ticino and Lambra, seaward goes,
Ada, and other streams that tribute pay,
So much more haughty and impetuous flows;
Rogero so, the more he hears display
Marganor's guilt, and so that gentle pair
Of damsels filled with fiercer choler are.
XCIII
Them with such hatred, them with such disdain
Against the wretch so many crimes incense,
That they will punish him, despite the train
Or armed men arraid in his defence:
But speedy death appears too kind a pain,
And insufficient for such foul offence.
Better they deem, mid pangs prolonged and slow,
He all the bitterness of death should know.
XCIV
But first 'tis right that woman to unchain,
She whom the hangman-crew to death escort;
And the quick rowel and the loosened rein
Made the quick coursers make that labour short.
Never had those assaulted to sustain
Encounter of so fell and fierce a sort;
Who held it for a grace, with loss of shield,
Harness and captive dame, to quit the field;
XCV
Even as the wolf, who, laden with his prey,
Is homeward to his secret cavern bound,
And, when he deems that safest is the way,
Beholds it crost by hunter and by hound,
Flings down his load, and swiftly darts away,
Where most o'ergrown with brushwood is the ground.
Nor quicker are that band to void the vale,
Than those bold three are quicker to assail.
XCVI
Not only they the dame and martial gear,
But many horses they as well forsook;
And, as the surest refuge in their fear,
Cast themselves down from bank and caverned nook:
Which pleased the damsels and the youthful peer;
Who three of those forsaken horses took,
To mount those three, whom, through the day before,
Upon their croups the three good coursers bore.